The Iranian military is using firing ranges designed to resemble Haifa and
Dimona to rehearse an air attack on Israel, The New York Times quoted classified
Pentagon intelligence reports as saying on Wednesday.

Following Israel’s
reported attack on a Syrian nuclear reactor under construction in September
2007, and an IAF drill over the Mediterranean in June 2008, the Iranian Air
Force started conducting “daily air-to-ground attack training at firing ranges
resembling the Israeli city of Haifa and the Israeli nuclear facility at
Dimona,” the classified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency
noted.

The Pentagon report also alleged that skittishness in Tehran over
an Israeli airstrike on its nuclear facilities resulted in the Iranian military
mistakenly firing on civilian airplanes and in one case on one of its own
military warplanes in 2007 and 2008, the Times reported.

“Iranian air
defense units have taken inappropriate actions dozens of times, including firing
anti-aircraft artillery and scrambling aircraft against unidentified or
misidentified targets,” the report cited a heavily classified 2008 Pentagon
intelligence report as stating.